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Testimonies for the Church Volume 1
this life, while you are neglecting the future, eternal life. Where is
the anxiety, the earnestness, the zeal, lest you make a failure there
and sustain an immense loss? To lose a little of this world seems to
you a terrible calamity which would cost your life. But the thought of
losing heaven does not cause half the fears to be manifested. Through
your careful efforts to save this life, you are in danger of losing eternal
life. You cannot afford to lose heaven, lose eternal life, lose the
eternal weight of glory. You cannot afford to lose all these riches,
this exceedingly precious, immeasurable happiness. Why do you not
act like a sane man, and be as earnest, as zealous, and as persevering
in your efforts for the better life, the immortal crown, the eternal,
imperishable treasure, as you are for this poor, miserable life and these
poor perishable, earthly treasures?
Your heart is on your earthly treasures, therefore you have no heart
for the heavenly. These poor things which are seen—the earthly—
eclipse the glory of the heavenly. Where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also. Your words will declare, your acts will show, where
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your treasure is. If it is in this world, the little gain of earth, your
anxieties will be manifested in that direction. If you are striving for
the immortal inheritance with an earnestness, energy, and zeal propor-
tionate to its value, then can you be a fair candidate for everlasting life,
and heir of glory. You need a fresh conversion every day. Die daily
to self, keep your tongue as with a bridle, control your words, cease
your murmurings and complaints, let not one word of censure escape
your lips. If this requires a great effort, make it; you will be repaid in
so doing.
Your life is now miserable, full of evil forebodings. Gloomy pic-
tures loom up before you; dark unbelief has enclosed you. By talking
on the side of unbelief you have grown darker and darker; you take
satisfaction in dwelling upon unpleasant themes. If others try to talk
hopefully, you crush out in them every hopeful feeling by talking all
the more earnestly and severely. Your trials and afflictions are ever
keeping before your wife the soul-harrowing thought that you consider
her a burden because of her illness. If you love darkness and despair,
talk of them, dwell upon them, and harrow up your soul by conjuring
up in your imagination everything you can to cause you to murmur
against your family and against God, and make your own heart like a